Why does God Allow
Evil? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
Should God’s existence be
proven? /Apologeticshtml/Should the Bible and God Be Proven
Fideism vs WCG.htm
Does
the Bible teach blind faith? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Gospel of John Theory of Knowledge.htm
Does God Answer the Prayers of Christians Who Keep Sunday as the Day of Rest?
How
can you know if another person is saved?
Does someone have to obey the seventh-day Sabbath in order to be
saved? Does God answer the prayers of
people who are ignorantly or unrepentantly violating His laws? Does God answer the prayers of Christians
who sincerely observe Sunday instead of Saturday as the day of rest? Then, if someone can be saved as a Christian
while attending a Sunday-observing Church, then why should he or she convert to
a Saturday-observing group? The basic
issue here is whether someone can truly be a Christian yet not keep the
Saturday Sabbath.
Let’s
consider the main weight of the statement the man born blind, but healed by
Jesus, when replying to his questioners (John 9:31): “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a
worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.” Obviously, someone that is unsaved, but is repenting after being
called, God will hear, and give him or her salvation. God heard and justified the humbled tax collector, not the
self-righteous Pharisee, in Christ’s parable (Luke 18:9-14). And undoubtedly God has been merciful, and
helps uncalled people in the world who know some of the truth by answering
various requests they make. After all,
He gives rain to the both the righteous and unrighteous out of a sense of mercy
and love (Matt. 5:44-45), even if they may lack the requisite faith and
obedience for answered prayer (James 1:6-8; 4:2-3; Mark 11:23-24; I John
3:22). But it’s quite a stretch then to
assume God will give the Holy Spirit to those who have knowingly chosen a
course in life that systematically and deliberately disobey various major laws
of His. True, it may well be, some
Sunday keepers keep various of the Ten Commandments or observe other principles
of God’s law better than various Sabbatarians do, except for the Old Testament
laws they deem to be abolished.
Likewise, some Sabbatarians who aim to obey the Sabbath, tithing, and
the Holy Days aren’t saved, for they are tares in God’s wheat field (Matt.
13:24-30, 36-43). True Christians may
routinely fellowship with the former after they were baptized and received the
laying on of hands for the Holy Spirit, and even wash their feet at the
Passover, but the “tares” still aren’t saved.
Let’s back up and examine a broader
issue in this context: What makes a man
or woman a Christian? Does the Bible
itself define how someone is Christ’s or not?
Perhaps the most central text is Romans 8:9: “Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not
His.” For as Paul goes on to explain,
the Spirit is what resurrects a Christian, and gives him or her eternal life
(verses 10-11). The Holy Spirit is a
token, guarantee, or earnest payment for salvation (II Cor. 5:5). Its presence in a Christian gives him or her
eternal life conditionally.
But we can’t directly sense the Holy
Spirit’s presence in another person, for it’s of a distinct, non-physical,
intangible dimension that we can’t directly touch, hear, or see. So how do we know whether a person who says
he or she is a Christian actually has it?
For anyone could run around, label himself (or herself) “Christian,” and
then others would have to extend the right hand of spiritual fellowship to him
regardless of his behavior. Ultimately,
decisions about someone’s state of conversion have to be based not on words
only, but on his or her deeds as well.
As the Apostle John wrote: “And
by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His
commandments. The one who says, “I have
come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth
is not in him, but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly
been perfect. By this we know that we
are in Him” (I John 2:3-5). The Fourth
Evangelist also observed (I John 2:3-5):
“Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep
His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” But whoever keeps His word, truly the love
of God is perfect in him. By this we
know that we are in Him.” Someone who
keeps systematically violating God’s law shouldn’t be deemed a Christian, as
John revealed: “No one who is born [or
begotten] of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot
sin, because he is born [or begotten] of God” (I John 3:9; cf. v. 7; 2:29;
5:18).
Does God give the Holy Spirit, the
presence of which is a requirement for salvation (II Cor. 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14;
4:30; John 6:63; cf. Col. 1:27; I John 3:24; 2:27-28), to those who
systematically disobey intentionally major parts of His law? What did Peter and the other apostles say (Acts
5:32)? “The Holy Spirit whom God has
given to those who obey Him.” Of
course, all Christians will sin (I John 1:8-10). But a distinction has to be made between two categories of
people: It’s one thing for people to
sin out of weakness while admitting (perhaps only later upon self-reflection or
hearing correction from others) that their conduct was sinful. It’s quite another for people to learn about
the major laws of God, such as the Sabbath, tithing, and the holy days, and
deliberately violate them as a matter of intentional course. For although a Sabbatarian may sin by (say)
committing adultery or neglecting the poor, he isn’t looking at the applicable
laws of God in question, and deeming them null and void a priori, which
would amount to deliberate rebellion in God’s sight. Even raw ignorance of these laws won’t allow someone to have
salvation, for the ignorant can’t be deemed to be saved even if God may not
always assess the full weight of the sins they commit against them (John
9:39-41; 15:22; Luke 12:47-48; Romans 1:18-32). Someone has to know God in order to be saved (John 4:22, 24; cf.
I John 2:21-27). When proclaiming the
truth of God to total pagans in Athens, Paul said God wanted everyone to
repent: “Therefore having overlooked
the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere
should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world
in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to
all [not just some—EVS] men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts
17:30-31).
Does
Scripture ever recognize the practice of rebaptizing people? Notice that John’s baptism wasn’t enough for
salvation, according to Paul: “John
baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him
who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus” (Acts 19:4). After hearing this, these people were then
baptized in the name of Jesus (v. 5), for they hadn’t known enough the first
time they were baptized to be deemed saved by God by it. These people also needed to receive the Holy
Spirit, which they had not even heard of (v. 2). So God gave them the Holy Spirit via Paul’s laying on of hands on
them (v. 6). And not just anyone can be
used to give others the Holy Spirit, as Simon the Sorcerer perceived. After Phillip had baptized people in
Samaria, Peter and John had to be sent up to give the people the Holy Spirit,
which they did by the laying on of hands (Acts 8:12, 14-17). And besides the initial spectacular miracles
in which the outpouring of the Spirit was used to start the Church of God with
a bang (Acts 2:1-4, 16-18), and which showed a special blessing was upon the
first gentiles to come into the church (Acts 10:44-47; 11:16-18), the normal
way the Holy Spirit was given was by the laying on of hands (Acts 9:17; I Tim.
4:14; II Tim. 1:6). So then the
questions need to be asked: How many
Sunday-keepers today were baptized by immersion at a responsible age (say, age
17 or older)? How many underwent the
laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit after baptism? How many lived a committed, responsible
Christian life after being baptized?
Obviously, all those sprinkled as infants or even dunked as young children
need to be eliminated as having become saved.
But, again, can people who deliberately violate God’s law as a matter of
policy, not just momentary physical weakness followed by repentance, be
saved? Even if they were just ignorant
of these laws, that doesn’t appear to be enough of an excuse to allow them to
be saved. If God is truly working with
people, He will lead them to greater and greater levels of truth if they humbly
accept correction at each level, which means He wouldn’t leave truly called
people permanently in Sunday-keeping, non-pacifist churches anyway.
Furthermore,
can we honestly believe that churches that allow their members to hate and kill
fellow Christians or other people on the battlefield are true churches of
God? Did not John write (I John 3:15;
cf. 2:9-11; 4:20-21): “Everyone who
hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murdered has eternal life
abiding in him”? Can men who kill other men in war really claim to love their
neighbor as themselves, to be practicing the Golden Rule, to be turning the
cheek? Can they lawfully kill their
enemies when their enemies still wish to live themselves? The mind boggles at the mental leaps and
twists required. Just because a human
government allows or orders Christians to go off and kill total strangers who
live hundreds or thousands of miles away doesn’t mean such killing is without
sin (see Acts 4:19; 5:29).
The
principle found in the parable of the vineyard workers (Matt. 20:1-15) doesn't
apply to fundamental Christian laws and principles that are sins of commission
to violate. Consider this sin list, one
of many in the New Testament: "But
the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers,
idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with
fire and brimstone, which is the second death" (Rev. 21:4). Sabbath-keeping (and Holy Day keeping, by
derivation) are in the same category as the other nine Commandments. They are fundamental laws Christians have a
duty to obey, or else their salvation is at risk if they are unrepentant about
their violations of these laws (compare I Cor. 6:9-11). Someone who routinely commits adultery and
denies that the Seventh Commandment is still in force is no more saved than
someone who denies the Fourth commandment and works on the Saturday Sabbath.
The
vast majority presently aren't saved, and haven't been saved throughout
history, as per Rev. 12:9 and II Cor. 4:4.
The great false church is a whole lot larger than the small flock of
God, as the Book of Revelation shows.
What's so hard about saying all these nice Sunday-keepers simply get
their first chance at salvation in the next life, after being resurrected? There just needed to be a few people who
knew the truth down through history somehow, in order to maintain the continuity
of the church's existence (as per Matt. 16:18). Long before there was a Strong's, a 19th-century production, or
even printed Bibles, some people figured out that the seventh day was the
correct Sabbath. In this context, consider the parents of Seventh-day Adventist
(SDA) church historian Samuele Bacchiocchi.
They strenuously searched to find a Bible for sale in the city of
Rome. After eventually finding them
sold at a Waldensian bookstore, they figured out that the Saturday Sabbath
should be kept after having read enough of it.
Being ignorant of the SDA's at the time, they thought that they were the
only Christians in the whole world who kept the seventh day, but they later
found out about the SDA Church. I bet
there was no equivalent of "Strong's" in Italian at the time (c.
1930). The lack of availability of
God's truth to most of the world, such as to the unsaved pagans of India,
China, Africa, or the Muslims of the Middle East on to Indonesia, doesn't prove
Sunday-keeping Christians are saved while in willful or ignorant violation of one
of the Ten Commandments. (That one,
like the rest, He deemed so significant that He wrote it out with His own
finger!)
There's
a certain amount of Scriptural teaching, whether it be doctrinal or concerning
Christian behavior, that can be figured out by average (uncalled) people
reading it through, for certain parts are or appear to be straightforward. But very few people in history have ever
been like George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of the Quakers/Society of
Friends. After reading the Sermon on the
Mount, he concluded that swearing and bearing arms in war were both sinful,
which literally obeys statements in Matthew 5.
He and those who agreed with him endured terrible persecution and
societal pressure that makes what Sabbath-keeping Christians experience in the
USA today look like a cakewalk by comparison.
Thanks to Fox, even so indirectly, we don’t have to swear (but just
affirm) to get a passport. His group's
example also helped to make conscientious objection status more available to
Sabbath-keeping people in America and elsewhere.
Is
it possible to detect the Holy Spirit in another person? We simply can't do it directly, for we can't
read other people's minds and hearts, unlike God. Likewise, there’s the interesting philosophical problem called
the problem of other minds. In order to
know that people have minds and hearts (emotions) like ourselves, we judge
their thoughts by their body language, facial expressions, and words. Unlike Mr. Spock in “Star Trek” when he used
the “Vulcan mind-meld,” we have no direct way to contact someone else’s mind
without the physical flesh coming in-between.
A similar issue has arisen in discussions of computer-supported
"artificial intelligence."
For instance, during a Turing test, someone dialogs with a computer long
enough until it makes an obvious blunder that a human being with a mind (and
emotions) would never do. But this is a
practical, operational test: A person
can't know how soon the computer will blunder syntactically, etc., as it is
programmed to fake acting human before actual experience in having a dialog
with the machine occurs. We know, from
Samuel's blunder with Eliab, that appearances can indeed deceive us, even when
(in this case) the man was a righteous prophet of God (I Sam. 16:6-7), for only
God can look into a man's or woman's heart directly, or read their minds.
How
can someone safely conclude that he or she has discerned in Sunday-keeping
Christians the Holy Spirit? This
mistake results from assuming that niceness or good interpretations of
Scripture can only come from people who are believers. I distinctly remember hearing an agnostic
professor of philosophy at MSU give an interpretation of one Biblical test
(John 1:1, if I’m not mistaken) that was very interesting. If I remember right, he observed that this
verse starts off by mentioning the Word, not God, was in the beginning, which
by itself implies Jesus is God. This
professor could read Greek, unlike most Christians of any kind, whether they
observe the Sabbath or Sunday. But
obviously the Holy Spirit didn’t give him such insight. No doubt, if we routinely associated with,
worked with, visited the homes of, or had other social contact with various
Hindus, Muslims, agnostics, the unchurched, or other unbelievers, lots of them
would turn out of be nice people who do kind things for other people in their
families or for neighbors. If they know
anything about the Bible, which is sometimes the case even today with certain
high-powered atheists and agnostics, they might even have some interesting and
useful interpretations of Scripture even as they would presumably harshly
attack it. They could even obey various
commandments better than various Sabbath-keeping Christians do, for we know
that God calls the weak of the world, not the strong, which may explain a lot
of the personality conflicts in the Sabbath-kepeing churches over the years (I
Cor. 1:18, 26-29). It's the people who
perceive their own emotional, intellectual, and/or moral problems who are most
apt to respond to God's calling. They
will say they need to depend on God rather than try to go through life without
using God's help as (skeptics might say) a "crutch." (Likewise, a disproportionate number of
psychology majors have significant psychological problems themselves: They choose that subject academically while
hoping to fix their own personal problems practically). If all members of the Sabbath-keeping
churches were as smooth socially as the great French diplomat Talleyrand
(1754-1838), there would be a lot fewer splits and divisions in the
Sabbath-keeping movement. (This leads
to the interesting distinction between EQ and IQ, that social skills and
intellectual ability don't necessarily correlate tightly, but that’s yet
another digression).
Consider
now the problem with this kind of reasoning: "There are all these
nice Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, etc., I know. Judging from their
behavior, which often is better than certain Sabbath-keeping members I know,
they must be just as saved as the Sabbath-keeping members."
Notice that this reasoning assumes "salvation by works":
Outward behavior is judged proof of salvation regardless of specific
beliefs or faith. Of course, this reasoning in principle can be extended
to people of other religions: "Look at all these millions and
billions of nice Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, ancestor
worshipping pagans, etc.. Since God would be a monster to
torture them for unending trillions of years in an everburning
hell fire for not accepting or even not hearing the name of Christ, God
will save them also." Well, that reasoning is "salvation by
works" also: Good behavior saves, in this case, regardless of
belief! Of course, Scripture teaches
that people can only be saved by the name of Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).
It’s
a good general principle that we shouldn't try to figure out what we can
"get away with" in God's sight, and yet still be saved. For example, should single Christians see
"how far they can go” (i.e., concerning physical contact), before getting
married? Instead, we should maintain
positive standards of holiness and righteous conduct even when they cost us X
amount of physical pleasure in this life.
But this principle also can be misapplied when it’s used to argue people
who are better behaved must be saved.
It's one thing to say that, all other things being equal, that a person
who sacrifices 10% of their income to help the poor is doing better spiritually
than one who merely gives 5%.
Similarly, someone who spends 50 hours a month preaching the gospel
door-to-door does better than one who spends merely 25. But neither person, when it comes to doing
additional good works, is necessarily more "saved" than another. True, an exception arises when a Christian
becomes so utterly negligent (and faithless, as per James 2:14-26) that he is
in the position of the man who hid his one talent in a napkin (Matt.
25:24-28). After all, good works
fundamentally don't determine whether one enters the kingdom of God, but how
high or low one's position will be (see also I Cor. 3:10-15). But we shouldn’t use good works to discern
that some someone is saved when their beliefs are still wrong.
It's
also necessary to make a distinction between having the Holy Spirit and being
led by it, as per John 15:17. Various
Sunday-keepers really could be getting some help from God as they interpret
Scripture and live their lives personally.
God also likely used various remarkable individuals among them to do
major historical works that eventually benefited average Sabbatarians in later
centuries. Without doubt, God used the
Protestant Reformation (and its major leaders such as Luther, Calvin, Wycliff,
Zwingli, Hus, etc.) in order to break the power of the Catholic Church and thus
eventually set the historical stage for the true church receiving the religious
freedom to preach the true gospel publicly to the world generally. More specifically, ponder the case of
William Tyndale (c. 1494-1536), who was martyred basically for translating the
Bible into English from the original languages against the will of the Catholic
Church. I myself benefit greatly from
the insights Sunday-keepers have on issues of (say) dating and family
relationships. What Henry Morris and
others in the scientific creationism movement have done in attacking evolution
has been very valuable. Some of what
Morris wrote on this subject was what persuaded me to give up belief in
evolution when I was about 17 in 1983 (or perhaps 1984), not something by a
Sabbath-keeper. We depend on these
people to translate the Bible and do background historical research and
linguistic/language work for us. But
just as the Jews aren't saved, despite they were used by God to preserve the
Hebrew Bible and the sacred calendar (Romans 3:2-3), neither should we believe
the Sunday-keeping Christians, Catholic or Protestant, are saved, despite doing
many admirable things, like Mother Theresa's in helping the poorest of the poor
in Calcutta. But once again, all these
nice things they do, or great works they have done, don't prove they are saved
or have the Holy Spirit or are called, for true faith requires correct belief
(cf. John 4:21-26), not just good works or being nice to other people.
Raw
ignorance, in this case, won’t excuse Sunday-keepers when it comes to
fundamental laws of God. Suppose
someone was ignorant of the command to not use pictures when worshipping God,
such as many Catholics would be ignorant of the Second Commandment (by the
normal, non-Lutheran Protestant enumeration).
Does that let them off the hook?
I doubt it. A certain amount of
basic spiritual knowledge is required by God for people to be saved. Observing the Sabbath, keeping the Holy
Days, avoiding military service and police work, and not using violence in
personal self-defense are all part of this required package.
It’s
a crucial duty for people who are called to leave a false church (or assembly
of people) that is denying doctrines crucial to salvation. Charles Pickering's book, "Biblical
Separation," influences my thinking some on this subject. Pickering, a staunch conservative Baptist,
cites such texts as Rev. 18:4 or II Cor. 6:14-17 in order to make the argument
that conservative Protestant Christians should leave a big denomination (e.g.,
Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, etc.) when it allows religious liberals to
remain in positions of authority. But this same principle of separation is also
valid when it comes to analyzing what doctrines Sabbath observers should use
when determining their standards of fellowship for walking with others. That’s why Sabbatarians should rebaptize
people who didn’t have the correct fundamental beliefs when they were baptized
the first time.
Now
interesting counter-arguments to the above reasonings can be presented from the
life of Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA), the spiritual teacher God used to assemble
His truth together for a set of the Sabbath-keeping churches during these end
times before His Son returns, and to proclaim publicly a non-Trinitarian
Christian Sabbatarianism to more people than anyone else has since the first
century A.D. After having been raised a
Friend/Quaker, a denomination that doesn’t practice water baptism, HWA was
baptized by a Baptist minister. HWA
also had a most interesting encounter with a Sunday-keeper who was used by God
to heal HWA’s wife, Loma. He later lost
the gift of healing after rejecting the Sabbath truth Mr. Armstrong revealed to
him. (See Autobiography, Vol. 1,
pp. 315, 319, 326-331, 340-344).
But
here we’re faced with an interesting issue:
How much should we use history and/or personal spiritual experience
and/or others’ spiritual experiences to determine doctrines, as a matter of
theological epistemology? We need to be
cautious about doing so. For example,
someone could argue that one can’t trace, using extant historical records, a
holy day/festival keeping set of Christians down through all the centuries
since A.D. 100. Therefore, someone may
conclude, God doesn’t require the festivals as any kind of condition for
Christians to be truly saved. But, of
course, what few records of their church history that were recorded and have
survived to the present for the period 100-1600 A.D. were largely recorded by
hostile outsiders. The Roman Catholics
who persecuted the true church obviously had little interest in making an
objective and systematic doctrinal account of their heretical Christian
enemies’ beliefs. Such a set of holy
day keeping Christians theoretically could have existed, but the records were
either destroyed and/or never written.
So historians, who have to work with what records are available to them,
can’t write much (or at least call it “history”) about what was never written
about in the past before their lifetimes.
So it’s best not to draw major decisive doctrinal conclusions apart from
what Scripture reveals to us.
Therefore, although God has directly answered the prayers of
Sunday-keepers, according to various stories I’m aware of, that doesn’t prove
decisively that they had the Holy Spirit and were saved.
In
conclusion, we should require the rebaptism of all people who God is calling
from churches that didn’t keep the Sabbath and Holy Days, and which allow their
membership to serve as armed combatants in wars (or as police officers carrying
guns). A spiritual line based on
Biblical standards has to be drawn somewhere between Christians and
non-Christians; we can’t just accept as “brothers” and “sisters” all those who
wish to label themselves “Christian.”
And this process inevitably involves Sabbatarian Christians exercising
some level of spiritual judgment based upon others’ outward behavior (cf. I
Cor. 5:1-5, 9-13; 6:1-11; John 7:24) and beliefs, not just accepting others’
proclamations about their inward faith.
Just because many Sunday-keepers have done good works or made impressive
sacrifices in serving God in one way or another, including even dying as
martyrs and serving as missionaries in primitive, hostile lands, or obey
various commandments or Biblical principles better than called Sabbath-keepers,
doesn’t prove they are saved. A number of
these people, who ridiculed literal obedience to the Fourth Commandment as
legalism even as they obeyed other commandments literally themselves, may well
find these verses applying to them (Matt. 7:21-23): “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the
kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord,
Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in your name cast out demons, and
in Your name perform many miracles?’
And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me , you
who practice lawlessness.’”
Eric
V. Snow
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Why does God Allow Evil?
Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why
Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
May Christians work on
Saturdays? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Protestant
Rhetoric vs Sabbath Refuted.htm
Should Christians obey
the Old Testament law? /doctrinalhtml/Does
the New Covenant Abolish the OT Law.htm
Do you have an immortal
soul? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Here
and Hereafter.htm
Does the ministry have
authority? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Is
There an Ordained Ministry vs Edwards.html
Is the United States the
Beast? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Are
We the Beast vs Collins.htm
Should you give 10% of
your income to your church? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Does
the Argument from Silence Abolish the Old Testament Law of Tithing 0205 Mokarow
rebuttal.htm
Is Jesus God? Click
here: /doctrinalhtml/Is
Jesus God.htm
Will there be a third
resurrection? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Will
There Be a Third Resurrection.htm
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